Recently, as a record medium has been frequently used a digital data storage (referred to as a tape cartridge, hereinafter) which is preferable for back-up of small and medium-sized data and smaller in size and lower in cost in comparison with other record media. The tape cartridge has been specialized for a computer data and developed so that a record capacity can be increased by extending a tape length with thinning a thickness of the tape and/or by improving a record format. As a part thereof, a thick-type tape cartridge employing a wider tape in comparison with a conventional thin-type tape cartridge is being used. Though the thick-type tape cartridge becomes thicker in its case thickness by an increased width in comparison with the thin-type tape cartridge, other basic constructions including a fore and rear case size and a left and right case size are substantially the same.
Though the recording and reading out of information data in the tape cartridges having different vertical thicknesses of their cases as mentioned above are generally carried out by their dedicated tape drives, such a tape drive device as being capable of recording and reading out data in any tape cartridge having different outside shapes by only one tape drive device is known to public in the Patent Document 1. According to the device disclosed in the Patent Document 1, a plurality of tape drives corresponding to the tape cartridges with different outside shapes are installed within a main body so that a subject tape cartridge for recording and reading out can be driven by a suitable tape drive.
The present invention is intended to provide a tape drive which is capable of recording and reading out for a thin-type and a thick-type tape cartridges in common with both. But, a compatible arrangement of these tape cartridges in this way itself is known to public in the Patent Document 2.
Further, such a tape drive is known to public in the Patent Document 3, which has a normally-closed door for a cartridge loading mouth, which can be made to swing toward inside of the tape drive for withdrawal interlockingly with a loading operation of the tape cartridge. Thereupon, it is also known to public in the Patent Document 4, to provide a cartridge loading mouth with a plurality of doors for opening and closing the mouth. Incidentally, in this case, the loading mouth of the drive device is devised to be opened and closed by the plurality of doors for preventing the erroneous loading of a disk cartridge having a wrong thickness.
In the tape cartridge according to the Patent Document 2, in order to absorb a difference between thicknesses of large and small tape cartridges, a recessed portion is formed in a bottom surface of the thick-type tape cartridge. In a condition that the thin-type and the thick-type tape cartridges are loaded within the same tape drive, the recessed portion is defined as a positioning reference for the thick-type tape cartridge, and the bottom surface of the lower case is defined as a positioning reference for the thin-type tape cartridge, so that top levels of the tapes of the thin-type and the thick-type tape cartridges within the tape drive can be maintained constant so as to share upper and lower positions of the tape traveling path.
In the tape cartridge according to the Patent Document 5, the center of the traveling of the tape within the tape drive is defined as a reference position, and memory elements to be arranged in the thin-type and the thick-type tape cartridges respectively are located at the positions spaced apart by the same distance from the reference position. Specifications and properties of the tape, data including settings of devices at the time of filming or the likes are stored in the memory elements.
According to the present invention, a main body of the tape drive is provided at a middle of its front surface with a pocket defined by portions of its upper and lower surfaces and its front surface for loading a tape. This pocket is opened by a shutter adapted to slide in the fore and rear directions along the lower surface of the main body case as well as a front lid swingably supported by the main body case. A tape cartridge employing such an openable and closable pocket is known to public as a DAT tape cartridge disclosed in the Patent Document 6, the Patent Document 8 and so on. The front lid comprises a front face plate for covering a front opening of the pocket along a left and right direction and connection pieces integrally connected thereto so as to extend rearward in the case from left and right ends of the front face plate, so that front lid can be pivotally supported so as to be opened upward about supporting shafts projected inward oppositely to each other from the inside surfaces of the connection pieces between a closed posture for closing the pocket and an opened posture for opening the front surface of the pocket by its raising position above the upper surface of the pocket.
Patent Document 1: JP Laid Open Publication No. 2002-15492 (paragraph 0015, FIG. 1)
Patent Document 2: JP Laid Open Publication No. 5-250841 (paragraph 0024, FIG. 1)
Patent Document 3: JP Laid Open Publication No. 8-315473 (paragraph 0030, FIG. 6)
Patent Document 4: JP Laid Open Publication No. 7-98913 (paragraph 0020, FIG. 3)
Patent Document 5: JP Laid Open Publication No. 7-65583 (paragraph 0020, FIG. 1)
Patent Document 6: JP Laid Open Publication No. 9-7342 (paragraph 0024, FIG. 1)
Patent Document 7: JP Laid Open Publication No. 9-7344 (paragraph 0011, FIG. 7)
Patent Document 8: JP Laid Open Publication No. 11-273301 (paragraph 0015, FIG. 2, FIG. 5)